Free Email providers:

Email online is often also called webmail. Each of the following sites offers a free email account (address). (We also provide tips for getting an email address.)

Yahoo

http://mail.yahoo.com

Yahoo's webmail is free, simple and full-featured.

Hotmail

http://www.hotmail.com

Hotmail is Microsoft's free webmail client.

Gmail

http://mail.google.com

Signing up for Google's Gmail requires a text-capable mobile phone or an invitation from an existing user.

AOL

https://new.aol.com/freeaolweb/

AOL provides webmail without requiring an AOL Internet account.

Email tools online:

Mailinator

http://www.mailinator.com

Temporary, throwaway email accounts for guarding against spam.

Mail2Web

http://www.mail2web.com

Online application that allows you to check your home email account (works in most, but not all, cases).

Instant Messenger (IM) Clients:

Instant messenger clients allow you to send and receive text messages in real time with other IM users, like email without the wait. Using them requires that you and the person you'd like to talk to are on the same IM service. The following represent some of the more popular services:

AIM (AOL Instant Messenger)

http://www.aim.com

An AIM screenname allows you to use AOL Instant Messenger Express, a web-based IM client.

Yahoo Messenger

http://messenger.yahoo.com

Yahoo Messenger is another popular web-based IM client.

Google Chat

http://igoogle.com

Web-based chat client connects to other Google and AIM users.

Windows Live!

http://people.live.com

This is Microsoft's web-based IM client (their desktop IM is at http://messenger.msn.com).

Meebo

http://www.meebo.com

Meebo allows you to log on to the more popular IM clients online, all in one place.